Page 7 of Hidden Nature

“Two? In the morning? What the hell are you doing here? Go home.” Agitated now, she managed to push up a few inches, then just dropped back. “Sari’s pregnant. She’s pregnant, right? I didn’t just dream that?”

“She’s knocked up good, Auntie Sloan. She peeked in on you yesterday. Everybody in CIB has come in. And every damn one gave blood. You lost a hell of a lot.”

Because they wanted to tremble, he rubbed his hands on his thighs. “You’re all full up now. You had both sets of grandparents check in, and your uncle, your cousins, Captain Hamm, and a whole bunch.”

“I don’t remember any of it. Everything’s so goddamn mixed-up and vague. Except… I died on the table. The operating table.”

“They brought you back.”

“Yeah. Three times they had to zap me. I was floating.”

But if everything else blurred, that remained clear as polished glass.

“I watched them.” She spoke slowly as she remembered every detail. “I saw you, pacing the hallway, blood on your shirt. My blood. In some hallway, talking on the phone. Crying a little. You said my family was coming, and you’d call when I was out. I was in surgery, and you’d call when I got out.”

He rubbed the hand he held in his. “Are you stringing me along?”

“It’s all so clear. Joel. How can that be so absolutely clear, and everything else not? I was going to let go. I felt so light, and it would’ve been so easy to just let go. But you were crying a little, and I remembered you’d told me I had to fight. Not to give up, but fight. So I did.”

He got up, walked to the window. Nudging the curtains open a little, he stared through the gap into the dark.

“I was talking to Sari. She was scared, crying, and wanted to come. I had to talk her down, talk her into waiting until I said to come. She loves you.”

“I know. I love her.”

He took another moment before he came back to sit again. “I guess that makes you a miracle, sis.”

“I don’t feel like a miracle. I got a tube sticking in me.”

“For drainage, they said. They’ll take it out before much longer.”

“They’ve got me hooked up to all this—this stuff.”

“IVs for fluid, catheter deal to catch them when you pee them out.”

“It’s demoralizing,” she decided. “Plus, it freaking hurts. Everywhere. Why are you grinning at me?”

“You’re getting better. Bitchy’s better.”

“Great. Help me break out of this place. C’mon, get me out of here. I’m starving.”

He sat up straight. “You’re hungry?”

“Hungry is wanting a bag of chips. I said I’m starving.”

“I’ll get you something.”

When he rushed out, Sloan gave in, pushed the button again.

She drifted off, but just under the surface. She broke through again when Joel came back with a little plastic bowl and a spoon.

“They said to start off with this.”

“What is it?”

“Beef broth.”

“That sounds disgusting.” And to the woman who had, only days before, bench pressed one-fifty, the spoonful of broth felt like a ten-pound weight. “It is disgusting,” she said, and ate another spoonful.

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